The grains of sand slipping through my fingers at Rio Del Mar Beach reminded me how long I had been waiting for the one true answer from above. How could I be expected to continue in my ad hoc servitude without the requisite guidance that only a higher power could deliver? I was still actively recuperating from a debilitating sickness due to environmental hazards at my former location of quasi-employment, holding my telephone at arms length in order to minimize the impact of pathogens from the filthy lucre, while continuing to remain stoutly on hold without folding. The miasma of subterfuge integral to politics was turning out to be one nasty nut case to crack. Who would have ever believed that from the progressive campaign headquarters of Lt Guv Gav Newsom, opportunistic proponent of the the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, AUMA, a proposition appearing on the California ballot in November, the muzak emanating from the hold position would be this painful to endure? Was that infliction upon me really a techno version of Fly Me to The Moon?

I was feeling great urgency and determination to get down to the real nitty-gritty on Rio Del Mar Beach and reap rewarding results in my now newly free-lance job that would ensure the safe passage of AUMA. Nothing less than sweeping victory when it came barreling down the aisle to the turnstile could count for more in the political struggle of the masses and classes, except the filthy lucre of course. I intended the initial speech I was writing for Lt Guv Gav Newsom to introduce the historical, sociological, psychological, sociopathic, criminal, and pseudo-scientific themes to be repeated ceaselessly on the campaign trail, making a maximum impact leading to a guaranteed landslide at the polls in November. Like, duh.

“Have you considered how it will play in Modesto?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m just saying.”

I had never visited Modesto, but I had been to Fresno twice. Also, according to the demographics, a shit load of weed was smoked in Modesto. Edibles, too. Fresno, too. I believed that qualified me to offer a definitive opinion incorporating more than one narrow point of view.

“Hark, ye of little truth, the faith will keep you strapped by the balls to chains.”

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Please hold.”

I was feeling confident I could convince Lt Gov Gavin Newsom, who had asked me to call him Loot when he recruited my servitude for the campaign, how important it was to lead with some bold and honest guts in his speech I was writing and reveal evidence of the conspiracy against freedom to smoke weed and ingest edibles led by primitive human tools of advanced robots who had been injecting an excessive gene for paranoia into douche bags opposed to the basic freedom to come out openly and smoke weed for decades. Why else, if not for this venal cabal of robots, and their sniveling connivance fueled by soulless techno music, would weed not have been declared legal by acclimation long ago?

Robots who hate freedom have always been the dirtiest and rottenest obstacles to freedom to be free and smoking weed. They use their soulless techno music to subdue flesh. In later speeches I planned to explore the conspiracy by robots to murder Jimi Hendrix after he blew out the amps at Monterey on June 18, 1967. How many have had to suffer for that night? Janis Joplin, dead. Otis Redding, dead. Robots, alive.

“Hello.”

“Is this Loot?”

“Please hold.”

Proof of a venal conspiracy is a powerful force to hold and handle with care for long. Unforeseen consequences, one of the major building blocks of the multiverse, lurk. Mistakes get made willy-nilly. I was highly conscious of my responsibility, though. And with the aid of trusty electronic devices, observant. The vital message in support of freedom to smoke weed and ingest edibles was, is, and always will be at risk from robots. And robots beget robots. I made it my unauthorized business while recovering during sick leave at Rio Del Mar Beach on the edge of western civilization to watch out for enemies of freedom who might be advancing to pose a threat.

I was maintaining my head on a typical swivel for what goes around and comes around in the here and now, because that is and all there is in a multiverse with no beginning and no end, when a trash eating gull of low consciousness swooped near my personal space and missed my head with a standard sized shit by a step. I felt encouraged to have scored a point for the side that was clearly winning.

I won’t take all the personal credit for my direction toward the edge of western civilization, which might not be as dumb as it seems, or the steady pace in the direction of the cliff overlooking the edge at Rio Del Mar Beach, which might have doomed me if faster and more bold, or retarded my progress if slower, because direction depends on conditions and conditions upon consciousness, but I interpreted it favorably as a good sign for my side, all my sides. Even with fully paid sick leave, bird shit on the head is statistically best to be avoided. Dog shit, too. Maybe waiting on endless hold is not so bad after all.

“You can’t use that word.”

“What word, shit? If I can’t say shit, what the fuck.”

“You may at times say shit with the correct emphasis and you may be authorized to say fuck when on rare occasion appropriate, but it is no longer appropriate to say retarded, not ever.”

I said, “What the fuck.”

That left me and all of my allied intestinal forces for freedom bereft. What about the web of cheap words that I had previously spun, including an arc of parenthetical what ifs and never minds? Or the caricatures of outlines, charts, and graphs that I had resized, reconfigured, and reproduced cheaply? Was I going to be forced to bend once again to the brutal fist of The Man? Without barbed run-on sentences at my command what defense could I muster against the tyranny of steel and tungsten alloys? I sensed the vile scent of robot underarms in yet another conspiracy.

“The word currently codified by acclimation is special.”

“Not to me it’s not.”

“To be declared solemnly with no despicable taint of irony.”

“I had a firm commitment on the side of freedom from Lt Guv Gav Newsom.”

“That was then.”

“Don’t expect me to finish that sentence for you.”

“Don’t try any funny stuff.”

Just then it stuck me that I was going to be forced to make another supreme sacrifice. These robots had to be stopped. Paid sick leave would have to wait for another episode.

“You can tell Lt Guv Gavin Newsom that I will be in the office to see him personally in the morning.”.